


lilacs bloom in the cruelest month

by acosmic



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acosmic/pseuds/acosmic
Summary: Rinea visits her garden with Berkut in tow.





	lilacs bloom in the cruelest month

In that middling area of spring, when weeks of cold rain would be followed by days of pleasant warmth until unbearable humid heat would return, Rinea returns home with royalty by her side.

Her mother embraces her and smiles too widely, eyes shining and teeth bright. She’d surely wink and nudge Rinea if she thought Berkut wouldn’t see and hushedly tells her, “You did well in attracting Lord Berkut’s attention. One of our neighboring counts claims that we’re infringing on their border, so we can use the royal family’s influence to get ahead.” as her father questions Berkut on the latest military escapade. 

“I would be out there on the front lines, milord, if not for my leg. An honorable injury from a battle decades ago—”

Rinea tries not to frown too deeply; her nursemaid used to have a habit of rubbing the space between her eyebrows when she did. “It was not my intent to ‘get ahead’ by being courted by the emperor’s nephew, if you could even call even call it that.” 

“Of course not, but it’s indeed wonderful that you did,” Her mother says, waving her off, “Count your blessings from the Father. At best, I thought you could get a middle-ranking noble above us, but this is better than what I dreamt…”

“ _Mother_ , I would like to show Lord Berkut around the grounds.” 

This time, her mother actually does wink at her. Rinea’s mortified. She glances at Berkut who is too busy being patted on the back by her father, who is still vigorously explaining how he’s not bringing dishonor to their house by being here at the manor instead of the front lines, to notice it. (It’s a little silly to insist on it, Rinea thinks, It just draws attention to the fact.)

Rinea walks over and grabs Berkut’s arm. There’s something surprising about the way her fingers sink into the cloth — if Rinea thinks about it, she’s almost never seen Berkut without his armor. After a moment’s pause, she tugs him out of the foyer.

“Your parents are very…” Berkut has to pause to think, perhaps for a polite adjective. “Lively. You act different around them.”

“I apologize if they were overbearing, my lord. And I apologize if my behavior was strange—”

“No, no. I enjoyed it immensely. Your assertiveness was refreshing. We all have sides we only show to certain people, after all.” Berkut looks straight into her eyes when he says this, which only makes the moment more embarrassing. She feels acutely aware of her hand gripped around his wrist, the way they’re standing on the lawn in plain sight of any servant who may spread rumors of how Lady Rinea is manhandling the emperor’s nephew. Rinea carefully lets go of Berkut, averting her eyes from his. The intensity of his words and gaze make her even more fraught with nerves; she can’t admit that she cannot be a pillar or a gilded cage or _something more_ lest to herself.

(She had read a novel once, of a servant and a noble’s relationship. The noble was locked in their position, and the servant had declared that if their master must be in a cage, they’d make it a comfortable cage. Rinea cannot open the cage or even hide it with glamours and festoons. 

Would the bird be more pitiful outside of the cage it has been in for its entire life or inside where it’s pulled along a few’s whims?)

“I— I. We have to go around the back, my lord,” Rinea mumbles it, and she chides herself. A childhood of 'Don't mumble, Rinea' and she still can't trip over her thoughts and words. 

Berkut tilts his head and gazes towards the sun hanging low in the sky. “To that grove of yours? Lead the way.” 

The rest of the walk looping around the edge of the grounds to the more wooded area behind the manor is in silence that borders awkward. The grove itself is made up of several paces of grass surrounded by trees — she had researched the exact variety when she was a child, but the memory is dim — and bushes and her own flowers. 

Rinea takes a breath before taking her first step in. 

The lilac shrubs, the wildflowers, hepatica and honeysuckle growing in thick masses, the green moss covering the trees, everything is the same, if not a little bit more wild from not being as kept as well while she was gone. 

For a moment, her feet glide into the beginning of a dance, a light, breezy thing the young women in the villages do, until Rinea remembers her company. 

Berkut stands by the lilacs, his face drawn tight and pensive, an intruder in her daydream. 

“Lord Berkut, you are not a trespasser as long as I remain here,” she calls, her voice lilts into something teasing, and it sounds strange to even her own ears. A stranger by Berkut’s side, a stranger in front of her parents, and a stranger in her garden.

Taking his hands, she pulls Berkut to an oblong stone. He brushes it off with his cape, ever the gentleman, and they sit. The silence is more pleasant, palpably warm and heavy, this time around, with the nightingales’ evening song in the air and the wind blowing the grass. 

Berkut gestures around vaguely. At some point, he had taken off his gloves, revealing pale skin. “You have quite the variety of flora. Could you tell me what they are?”

“Ah, the cleared space over there is where my hyacinths are going to be. Hyacinths originally originate from Zofia and surely would not survive in more northern areas of Rigel, but it is more temperate here, so I had hoped I would get to see them bloom in Autumn.”

Berkut makes a noise of affirmation. With his eyes closed and a stray petal in his hair, he says, “I would enjoy seeing them with you, Rinea.”

“It would do me no greater honor, my lord,” Rinea says. She resists the urge to pluck the petal from his hair and to take his hand. “Although, Lord Berkut can see the lilacs, the violet shrub we had to pass on our way in, blooming. Lilacs always bloom during my birth month which make for a lovely—”

“Your birth month? Is your birthday coming up or has it already gone by without you telling me of it?” Berkut’s voice is petulant, and when Rinea looks over she can see that he’s pouting. 

Rinea takes the moment to take the petal from his hair and says, “I did not mean my lord any offense; I have just not had a chance to tell you of it, and we have been traveling to visit my home, so I had wished we would celebrate together here. My apologies if you had wished to bring a gift, but you have already given me so much.”

Berkut looks sheepish and embarrassed of either the petal he had in his hair without him noticing or Rinea’s words. She spins it between her fingers and pokes her cheek with it. 

“Did you know,” Berkut says, “that in Archanea they call it April?”

“The month? I had not known.”

“Yes, all of the months have different names there. As a child, a tutor forced me to read books on Archanean culture in the case of a diplomatic visit, and it had seemed intriguing to me at the time.”

There’s a pause when Berkut looks at her. Rinea lets go of the petal, feeling it drift down in the breeze.

“They call it the cruelest month, but I cannot imagine someone as lovely as you being born during it.” Then when Berkut smiles and laughs, Rinea finds herself standing up and taking his hand. 

“Lord Berkut, may I have the honor of having this dance?”

He takes her hand, and she knows it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. i know sov has fictional month names, but by awakening's times they have ""our"" months so i wondered if they came from archanea and then got caught up in the idea of rinea being born in the 'cruelest month'. there is another joke to be made here that i didn't catch but . don't.
> 
> 2\. this is loosely inspired by the first section, The Burial of the Dead, of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and a mspaint comic i posted on twitter that is not worthy of being shown -- the particular parts that inspired this were
> 
> april is the cruelest month, breeding/ lilacs from the dead land, mixing/ memory and desire, stirring/ dull roots with spring rain  
> [...]  
> "you gave me hyacinths first a year ago;/ they called me the hyacinth girl"/ —yet when we came back, late, from the hyacinth garden,/ you arms full, and your hair wet, i could not/ speak, and my eyes failed, i was neither/ living nor dead, and i knew nothing,/ looking into the heart of light, the silence
> 
> 3\. if you ask me about any of this i don't know i'm dying


End file.
